Friday, April 18, 2008

Kolkata Knight Riders, powered by a record unbeaten 158 from Brendon McCullum, easily won the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League, whipping Bangalore Royal Challengers by 140 runs at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Friday night.

The New Zealander amassed his runs off only 73 deliveries as Knight Riders put up a massive 222 after being put in to bat by Royal Challengers' captain Rahul Dravid.

All those who raised their fingers against India when they lost in the 2nd test, should now take it back as India crushed the Africans in the 3rd Test to win the match by 8 wickets.

The match being played at Green Park in Kanpur did not allow any of the two teams to pile up huge scores. South Africa scored merely 265 runs in the first inning while India could manage only 325 runs in its first inning.

Indian bowlers excelled in both the innings with Harbhajan taking most of the wickets in both first and second innings. Virender Sehwag who could not excel with the bat in this game produced a very good spell scalping three wickets today and helping India restrict South Africa for merely 121 runs.

Harbhajan today captured four wickets while Sehwag returned his career-best figures of three for merely 12 runs to skittle out South Africa for 121 in just 55.5 overs in their second innings - their second lowest total in India.

India were set to score 62 to win and they finished at 64 for two, with Rahul Dravid remaining unbeaten on 18 and Sourav Ganguly on 13.